Intel confirms that the Raptor Lake chip generation is still very much on the cards.
Lately, we've seen the first signs of what could be the end of the galloping DRAM and NAND inflation of recent months. Indeed, prices in Germany, China and the USA all point to a sort of plateau, with prices even dropping from the peaks reached in February 2026. However, the end of inflation does not mean that tomorrow's prices will be similar to those of summer 2025, or even autumn. DDR5 in particular is and will remain very expensive for many weeks to come.
It's not for nothing that Intel, through its General Manager of the Consumer CPU Division, has confirmed its interest in DDR4-based solutions. The technology may be aging, but it still offers excellent performance, and although its prices have also risen, the inflation here is nothing like that of DDR5. In an interview with Club386 journalists, Robert Hallock confirms that the Raptor Lake generation of chips is still relevant at Intel: " Raptor Lake is a key element of our strategy, and I'd like to make that clear [...] It's still performing very well, even in the face of several generations of competing hardware. So it's here to stay. I want everyone to understand that Raptor Lake will continue to be widely available.
The ASRock H610 COMBO II is a DDR4 and DDR5 compatible motherboard © ASRock
Robert Hallock also points out that " we have also seen announcements of new motherboards compatible with DDR4 and DDR5 on Raptor Lake, as a sort of bridge between two worlds [...] This reflects our confidence and general expectations ". Indeed, several motherboard brands now offer models capable of working with both DDR4 and DDR5. There's no question of running with both technologies, but you can buy 16GB DDR4 for the time being, and consider upgrading to 32GB DDR5 when the price makes sense again.
